Stupid Convenience Stores

Remove all ads!

As a former cashier at a convenience store, I must point out a glaring error on everyone's part.

Store Policy of not accepting a higher denomination of bill, such as a $50, is not due *soley* to confederacy. It also includes *robbery*, especially during the evening and overnight shifts.

In the gas station where I worked years ago, it was part of the training to make 'drops' in the safe if the cash register ever held more than $50. Most of the time, I made at minimum three drops per night.

Although I do find it very stupid for my manager to change a $100 or $50 for Joe Blow from the Factory to pay for his 10 cent refill coffee, yet I got reamed for accepting *at night* a $50 from a woman buying a case of beer, a soda pop and a pack of diapers which added up to $48.

 

So basically, Cashiers can catch hell for using common sense if this violates store policy. To Quote Yakov Smirnov: What a Country...

 

Wow...

And to think it's perfectly acceptable to pay for a couple cans of beans and a smoke for $5 with a $100 bill here. At a gas station, no less.

(I've seen this happen. No, I don't smoke, my uncle bought it)

 

Concider this angle: if they allow people to pay with large bills, they might be afraid to run out of change for customers. I mean, if people only pay with 50 dollar bills, they might not have the change for someone who buys something for <$10 for example.

 

they would just go out in the safe where they have loads of change..

 

@ Catbert and (to a lesser extent) Morgoroth:

Other than the last comment to the cashier, I don't think I did anything rude or insulting. I was merely asking questions that would help me to better understand why the policy was in place. The explanation given (lack of change) didn't make any sense as my purchase did not require them to give me a large amount of change.

The only reason that I made that final rude comment to her was because she threatened to have me thrown out of the store for committing the horrendous crime as asking some questions. So really it was her that got rude to me first. That's what really ticked me off - I wasn't angry at all up to the point - confused about the situation is more like it.

Throughout my high school and college days I worked at a retail store, and it is true that sometimes you get difficult customers. If I was in her predicament, the way I would have handled it (instead of threatening the customer) would be to say, "Sir, there's nothing more that I can tell you. Let me get my manager and perhaps he can better address your concerns."

 

I think in this incident as told by Aldeth getting the manager would be the appropriate response. Aldeth was lucky that the man behind him could and would change the $50. The gas was in the car. What would the store employees do? Siphon out the gas? The manager should be able to okay the the purchase and payment.

 

You're probably right there. Me myself don't have the luxury of getting the manager since taking care of the place is a one person job. Anyhow it really depends if there was a long line behind you or not. If the guy behind you was the only guy waiting then it's understandable but if there are like ten persons behind you then I'm pretty sure that the manager advises his employees to tell a troublesome customer to piss off, since quite frankly one customer ain't worth the trouble of keeping the line waiting. This of course also depends on the size of store etc. But yeah under normal circumstances getting the manager would be the best option. Still I think you were a bit too rude and your last comment was definently unnecessary. If you really wanted to deal with the manager you could have asked the cashier to get him.

 

I admit that my last comment was rude, but that was said out of anger and frustration. Not that being angry and frustrated justifies it in any way, but I feel if the cashier had remained civil with me, I would not have spoken rudely to her.

Quite often, sarcasm, or other speech inflections do not come across well in written text. In case it was unclear in my initial post, I was not being sarcastic, talking down to, or otherwise insulting the cashier. The comments I made were civil in tone, and it was her who quickly became agitated. That is why I don't understand why people think I was rude prior to my final comment, which admittedly was unnecessary.

Who knows? Perhaps she caught me on a bad day (I don't think so, but maybe), or to turn it around, maybe I caught her on a bad day. The bottom line is she violated the golden rule of all retail/service related professions: The customer is always right. If there is a disagreement between an employee and a customer, the options of the employee are limited to getting a manager, or offering a different solution to the problem. Threatening or getting hostile with the customer is surely not an advisable way of doing good business.

 

Ha! Having served six years in a convenience store, I'm used to the idiocy being on the other side of the counter. The number of self-righteous dickheads I had to be courteous to is exceptionally high, and typically the problem is on the purchasing side of the register. This person you've struck, Aldeth... well, all I can do is second that by saying "Congratulations - you are a ****ing moron!"

Much like kuemper, I can understand the no-$50s policy if you were in a service station that was frequently robbed; having been there and experienced that, I can say it's a good policy to make generally known (although I don't believe it's as helpful as actually making the site secure). Regular cash drops are a necessity when your cash register is overflowing with high-denomination bills - in my experience, that was an excess of $200 AUD.

But seriously - when you only have to give back a fiver and change, WTF is going on? It's pulling a Chewbacca Defence for store policy. I can't imagine it's an utterly unwavering policy which even the employees and regular customers are subjected to, irrespective of circumstances.

A bit of common sense doesn't hurt; unless the guy behind the current customer is packing a shotgun and waiting in line, you'll have time to safe-drop the cash before he's holding you up. If your boss is that much of a prick that they'll fire you for being practical, you're better off at another store, and you can sue the crap out of them for it to boot. If they're not actually present, well, if their policy is unreasonable, I see no reason to follow it.

@ Nakia: At the stores I worked at, we requested other methods of payment, or wrote out an I.O.U-style note complete with personal information (including license number) and asked for something of value as collateral, and got them to come back within a few days to pay. If they didn't agree to that, we called the police to report a drive-off.

And on a less serious note...

Worst example of a blatantly bill-breaking customer I ever encountered was a guy (in a suit, of course - he had the manner of a self-important knob) who bought one litre of milk (about $1.50) with $50. I thought, okay, maybe he only has the $50, no problem. This guy completes the sale, then goes back to the fridge, pulls another litre of milk, returns to the counter, and pulls out another $50. In not so many words, I told him to get stuffed and pay with the coins I'd just given him.

 

Obviously, I can understand that keeping tons of money in the cash drawer is asking for a robbery. However, it's not like this was in a section of town where crime was high, and also it wasn't at a time of day where you were likely to get robbed either. (As I said, it was on my lunch break, so it was right around noon.)

Plus, this was a fairly large convenience store, complete with a deli where you could buy a sandwich (which I did). There were people coming in and out of that store constantly. Unless they were doing cash drops every half hour, it is quite likely that they have a great many 20s in the register at any given time. I don't see the difference to having a whole bunch of 20s or a little bit fewer 20s but more 50s - either bill is rather unsuitable for giving change.

EDIT: Just got back from that same convenience store, in which I purchased gas and a carton of cigarettes - total bill - $65.53. I previously went to the bank to get a $50 to retest this theory. (I'm going grocery shopping this weekend, so even if they didn't take the $50, I knew I could use it this weekend). So anyway, it was a different cashier, and I handed the guy a $50-bill and a $20-bill. He took them both, no questions asked, and gave me $4.47 back.

Unfortunately, this doesn't do much to answer the question. It is perhaps that the cashier didn't know the no-50s rule. Or, perhaps it's OK to pay using a 50 if you're buying more than $50 worth of stuff. If it was strictly a counterfeit issue, it wouldn't matter the monetary value of your purchase. I don't like the no big bills in case you get robbed theory either, because regardless of what denominations you accept, the amount of money in your register is going to be more dependent upon when was the last time you did a cash drop, and not what the denominations are. If you've processed $200 worth of transactions since your last cash drop, it doesn't matter whether the cash transactions were all $1s, or two $100-bills - you have the same monetary value in the register.

[ October 20, 2005, 16:28: Message edited by: Aldeth the Foppish Idiot ]